Hi all!
I was watching Tom and Jerry the other day, and poor Tom had a piano dropped on him from a great height. Obviously Tom was okay, but it got me thinking about whether or not anyone had evere suffered death by piano. I can imagine someone being flattened by one when trying to get them down a flight of stairs, but I can’t find anything on the web to confirm this theory. And if no-one had died from piano, why has this been the traditional death in loony toon cartoons? Help me, please!
Apparently yes. This is a description of the O’Cayz Corral club in Madison, Wisconsin.
And this is from a genealogical website.
LOL. An interesting question indeed. Welcome to the boards stigoftdump.
Cheers peeps! That’s been bugging me for ages - how on EARTH did you find that so quick APB - did you just tap it into google? I had no luck with that whatsoever!
I read in the NY Times maybe ten years ago about a man who was walking past a construction site on a very windy day and was crushed by a Port-a-Pot that blew off an upper floor.
Can you imagine having to break the news to his wife?!
And someone was playing pianer in the Johnny-on-the-spot? Maybe an accordian I could imagine…
I did indeed use Google, searching on ’ killed “falling piano” '. Most of the results are obviously not about real events but a few do seem to be. I was slightly suspicious about the Madison, Wisconsin story, especially as I couldn’t find any other reports about the incident, but the unfortunate victim does seem to have been a real person.
What an inspired question. This message board is fantastic!
I also quite liked the fact you said it had been bugging you for ages stigoftdump, that must have been quite annoying…
Pianos really can kill? And I wasted all these years worrying only about safes! (How bout some safe-dropping stories, Dopers?)
Maybe I should also start worrying everytime I enter a tunnel that it is really just a black semicircle painted on the face of a rock by the Road Runner… <meep meep>
How about death due to, ahem, a falling organ?
“There is, however, an alternative tale of Genghis Khan’s death which I read in Jasper Becker’s Lost Country: Mongolia Revealed. This version claimed that Genghis Khan craved after the legendary beauty of the Queen of Xixia and brought her to his imperial ger after capturing her. During the passionate session which followed, the humiliated queen suddenly brandished a hidden knife, severed the Khan’s penis and then killed herself. The khan then died from loss of blood, rather than a fever which resulted from his fall from a horse. So, which version do you believe?”
(Quote is from www.bootsnall.com)
How about anvils?
You were right to be suspicious, APB. The Daily Page article was bogus. I can’t find a cite correcting the joke, but here’s a more recent article about Cathy from the same web site:
The reason her club closed was because it burned down.
Okay, so I did a search at (US) OSHA to see if they had any records of falling pianos.
I found only the following two items:
and
Employee Crushed to Death When Piano Fell on Him
Unfortunately, neither of these really answer the original question. 
Unless Jerry pushes the piano across a carpeted floor onto Tom.
I didn’t imagine it!
“Ramon Jose Rodriguez, 23 was working at a construction site north of Miami, Florida, when a sudden gust of wind blew a portable toilet off the fourth floor of the building next to him. He died about an hour after the bizarre accident. A public spokesman said, ‘High winds evidently blew the metal toilet over the edge of the building. The victim didn’t know what hit him.’ ‘It was a tragedy but it could have been worse.’ said a co-worker. ‘Fortunately, no one was using the toilet.’”
Well, that’d actually be Coyote who painted the black semi-circle, and RoadRunner who goes through said painting unharmed, where-in Coyote tries it to only to be flattened.
OSLO, Norway (AP) – A flying sheep’s head hit a concertgoer and fractured his skull at a concert of metal band Mayhem. The band, part of Norway’s death metal music scene, was carving up a dead sheep as part of its stage act when the animal’s head flew off lead singer Maniac’s knife and struck Per Kristian Hagen, 25. “My relationship to sheep is a bit ambivalent now. I like them, but not when they come flying through the air,” Hagen told The Associated Press Monday from his hospital room. “I have a headache now.”
Oops…that was a silly mistype on my part. Only my 2nd post too! :smack: You can tell that I secretly always rooted for Wile E.
Important question: was it Acme brand paint?